


Still Life

by Argyle



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: Ficathon, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-08
Updated: 2008-09-08
Packaged: 2017-10-29 05:16:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/316220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argyle/pseuds/Argyle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray isn't one to count his blessings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still Life

_DI Tyler_

 _1 takeaway carton – Taj Majal Tues. special?  
5 sheets paper, crumpled (2 blank, 1 re: football ave., 1 re: rainfall ave., 1 re: Morrison case – no new leads, 1 recipe – roast duck w/ plum sauce)  
1 sec., Sun. _Gazette _(crossword halfway compl.)_

 _Notes: Standard, desp. abnormal behav._

 _Addnl. notes: Poofter._

Ray tapped his biro on the desktop, then glanced back down at Tyler's bin. It was half-full, though only just, almost neat, and barely pungent: not quite the stuff of legend. But damned if he felt let down. Fact is, he couldn't be bothered to think twice. He knew what he knew, and whatever he didn't mustn't have been worth knowing.

He'd told that to the quack, in so many words, to which that smug bastard had replied, "Just try to get to know him better. Take note of his interests. Observe his work habits. You go to the pub together, I take it?"

"Yeah," Ray said, and then frowned. "No. Not together. With the team, like."

"After your shift?"

"If there's been a blag stopped, sure. Naught else to do."

"It's a start. But the next time you see him, offer to spot a round. If what you've said about your DI is accurate, he'll return the favor."

"What?"

"Detective Carling, I'm sure he wants to be on your good side."

"Sounds like you're telling me to buy him."

"No." The response came with a shake of the head, which made Dr. Garrison's glasses flash in the blue-white light. "But I suggest you try to understand him."

"He's barmy. What else is there to understand?"

"He saved your life."

Ray had flushed, suddenly angry all over again: the Boss abandoning them all to swift slaughter wasn't something a month's worth of mandatory therapy sessions could gloss over, even if he did come back. As Ray saw it, the whole thing was just an excuse for Tyler to up the high and mighty act, self-righteous as the day he blew in from Hyde, and scarcely able to shake it despite a raw dressing-down from the Guv.

Shit, but DCI Hunt had really dealt him one. Better than the flicks.

Of course the team'd not exactly gathered round, goading them on like schoolboys: it wasn't that kind of fight. No, it was deliberate and brutal, and Tyler accepted his due with all the patience of a penitent. Then he got up. Looked the Guv in the eye. Bloody well nodded, knowing and short, like it was settled.

Funny thing was, it hadn't really changed things.

Nor did it make Ray feel any better now. He sniffed, hearing a loud thump from the Guv's office, and then another, lighter sound, like that of papers scattering from desktop to floor. It was well after hours, but now Ray'd come to notice it, that rarely stopped the Guv from having a laugh at the Boss's expense. There was always this: the huff of breath, maybe a grunt as Tyler took one to the kidney or the jaw, or maybe the kidney and the jaw at once. And then the blinds jittered.

A force of nature, his Guv.

And anyway, it wasn't as if Tyler couldn't take it.

Ray meanwhile was well enough content to do a bit of investigating, on the fly, filling in the details on his own. And while he was there, why not have a go at the rest? He used the tip of his pen to poke through one bin, and then next before he began to write:

 _DC Skelton_

 _1 packet, bacon crisps  
1 packet, Jammie Dodgers  
1 packet, Minstrels  
1 issue, _Just Jugs _, April '71 (missing 3 pages – letters to the ed., sport column, intv. w/ D. Hopper_ )...

***

Of course h'd had plenty worse than a shot in the arm. Christ, but if Ray was at all honest with himself, that car bomb had set him half-delirious, and even as a second-year plod he took a bullet in the gut, after which he'd been sentenced to bed rest for a fortnight or more.

So why now? What'd been so bloody special about the Johns case?

The last thing he needed to do was talk about his feelings.

 _"He saved your life."_

"So what?" asked Ray, fiddling with a bit of frayed cotton on the hem of his sling. The wound still pained him, prickling against all the moist autumn air the North had to offer, but he only wore the sling here, and only where they were watching. "Weren't a man there wouldn't do the same."

Dr. Garrison tilted his head. "Would you?"

"Yeah," Ray said, not really hearing himself. "Yeah. Don't you get it? What d'you think I am, you twonk? Why in hell am I here, anyway?"

"Are we back to this, Detective?"

"Yeah. We're back."

A sigh, and then, with hands spread: "This is the future."

They gave him another prescription. Mild sedatives to help him sleep. He shoved them deep in his jacket pocket, then spent a long moment staring out the window where grey skies eked six long floors down to grey pavement; inside, the air was bright and clear, and an unseen multitude of patients and doctors clicked through the tiled hallways like the second hand of a watch.

He bought a bacon buttie from the hospital caff on his way out, eating it through in three bites and wiping the grease on his thigh, glad enough to find the ones at the station were better.

***

At half-five two mornings later, Ray and Chris were hunkered in an unmarked Datson, dinged and wholly unrespectable and not at all a good place to carry on a conversation about the footy or the latest Clapton record or all the birds Ray wished he was shagging. Case in point, it was even hard to talk about Terry Smythe, suspected purveyor of assorted exotic goods up to and including foreign knockoff radios. They'd not seen hide nor hair of their target all night.

Chris was picking a bit of leather from the passenger seat, the sallow flesh about his eyes pruning in the dawn. "See any telly last night?"

Ray snorted. "I was _here_ last night."

"Before we got here."

"I was at CID. Weren't you?"

Chris smiled. "Yeah."

There was a silence before Ray ground out, "Well?"

"Eh?"

"What was on?"

"Dunno."

Ray sighed. This was the same as it ever was. In another twenty-five minutes, the Guv and the Boss would come round (the Guv looking knackered and the Boss looking more knackered still) for their own spin round the dial.

And damned if they'd not have a collar within fifteen minutes of their arrival.

There'd be a bit of a party back at CID, but only a bit: it would still be before noon, and the Super'd likely be lurking about. The Guv would be generous, and even the Boss might relax for a moment and not cluck too much as they talked about opening a Party Seven. Then it'd be back to the beginning. No chance for a real time.

Ray went home.

***

It was quiet.

Sure, the din of the city caught the station walls in an occasional rattle, and the drinks machine wailed like a titanium-titted banshee when it was left too long to sit. But even this had little to do with the hour and a lot to do with the slowness of the day, the calm which had settled upon them so easily as to not warrant a word: Tyler'd done paperwork, starchy as always, and Ray and Chris had attempted to fashion B-52 bombers from used cereal packages; there was a bit of a scrum in the hall, and rather later, Chris had been banished to the Collator's to catalogue and sort. Ray had sat steadily, half-slung over his chair, ever lighting a fag and tilting rings into the eaves.

Seven hours later, he was still smoking.

It took him a while to pick out the differences. The air was cooler, maybe. Or less acute. But then again, he'd taken off his jacket, and the hair on his forearms always prickled when he felt half-gone and sated. And then again, it was only that the Guv's office was empty: not a sound, not a soul, not a solid left hook.

And the Guv's office was empty because the Guv was staring down at him, point-blank and angry. "Six times, Carling," he said, narrowing his eyes. "I've seen you hangin' round here after beer o'clock six times. Now, if I didn't know better, I'd say you—"

"I swear, Guv—"

"—were catchin' up with your quiz scores. But I know better." Hunt looked at him. Really looked at him. Then he glanced down at Ray's open notebook, all blue-splotch scrawl and tea stains. His lip curled. It was almost the smile he once knew to look for, the product of whisky and exhaustion. "You're on stakeout tomorrow. DC Zimmer'll be round at five. No excuses."

Ray didn't turn to see him go, but soon enough, he was as good as gone.

His hair didn't so much prickle as do the bloody polka.

It was another fifteen minutes before Ray sufficiently roused himself, pushing up from his chair, then five for a dash to the gents', and two to get himself back to the corridor. The lift was waiting for him. When the doors creaked open, the dusty interior was welcome and almost pleasant but for the glare of the overhead lamp.

He moved to push a button—

"Hold it," the Boss's voice called after him. He was breathing a little heavily as he came into view, almost as though he'd been running, but his eyes were clear through the gloom.

Ray was tempted to pretend he'd not heard him. To make like there was no going back: the switch had been thrown, and that was it, onward, either take the stair or wait for your own ruddy turn.

Instead, he pushed his right hand forward, mindful of his aching left shoulder, and halted the doors. Tyler got in.

"Thanks." Tyler wasn't quite smiling, which was just as well: Ray might've topped him one if only for the feel of it. Instead, Tyler pressed the button to reach street level, his gaze even on the blinking panel. Then he looked up. "Where to?"


End file.
